


A series of unfortunate events.

by Lost_gallifrey



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Coitus Interruptus, Cole has bad timing, Dorian's bad day, Exploration, Gen, Humor, M/M, Mishaps, utter rambling nonsense, who likes quillbacks anyway?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 11:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3808813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_gallifrey/pseuds/Lost_gallifrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started as a varghest hunt.....and then there were quillbacks, inappropriate spirits, sand where there shouldn't be sand, and (naturally) venatori.<br/>Dorian really should have stayed at home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A series of unfortunate events.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd associate this story with 'Sleepless in Skyhold', same tone, same characters. (a little less blight) It's a bit of a rambling trip to nowhere, but I just have fun writing these three~so this happened!

“Do you even know where we're going?” Dorian stared around at the uninspiring (and apparently endless) vista of sand and rock in disgust. “I hope this isn't some manner of misguided sight-seeing trip. Goodness, another wind-blasted rock pile! Bull, you shouldn't have.”

“I didn't hear you complaining when I mentioned getting some varghest scale. Iron Bull looked amused by Dorian's growing litany of complaints. 

“Yes, well......I rather thought it would involve me lounging at an oasis and watching you bludgeon things.” Dorian huffed, “if I wanted varghest scale I would buy it in a nice clean, civilized market, not pry it off some carrion.

A large part of the problem was that they hadn't seen a single varghest in the hours they'd been traipsing across the desert. Not one shed scale, not even a blighted footprint to show that the beasts were anything more than a guardsman's tall story. Dorian was starting to suspect they were going to die out here; three desiccated little corpses to showcase the stupidity of following a Qunari anywhere.

Cole vaulted down off a towering rock pile with considerably more enthusiasm than grace, showering sand everywhere. Dorian sighed at the sight of him. For whatever reason, Cole had chosen today to abandon his long jacket and hat, and the unprotected skin on his forearms and face was well on its way to developing the most impressive sunburn the mage had ever seen. When that started to peel the poor spirit was going to look like he had leprosy.

“Find anything interesting up there, kid?”

“A fenec.” Cole held something up between thumb and forefinger. “It ate a bright beetle and died.”

Whatever horrible beetle based fate had befallen the little creature had obviously happened a very long time ago. Dorian stared in disgust at it's wizened, utterly flat muzzle; the fenec stared back with one empty eye socket and a lopsided, desiccated eyeball that resembled a raisin.

“Charming.” Dorian muttered with a shudder.

“Ignore him.” Bull gave Cole a clout on the shoulder that nearly knocked him over. “He's probably got sand all jammed up in his pretty 'vint underthings.”

“I do not!” Dorian hissed, as if vehement denial could make his nethers any less gritty.

“I have sand in my shoes.” Cole observed cheerfully. I shake it out, but it comes back. I think it likes my feet.”

Dorian didn't want to think about his feet. Like the rest of him, they were swimming in sweat and coated in grit, the left one was starting to blister. Griffon keep, with its offal filled well, meager water supply and ever present smell of sulphur was starting to seem like a distant memory of utopia.

When they finally crested the rock studded dune that had taken a good hour to ascend, even Dorian had to admit the view was spectacular. The desert spread out in ripples like the contours of slightly crumpled fabric. The distant hulk of Griffon keep was little more than a smudge on the horizon, a testament to just how far they had walked. 

“So,” Bull crowded in against Dorian's back, one hand a heavy weight on the mage's hip. “Am I forgiven?”

“Possibly.” Dorian was somewhat mollified by the winking blue eye of an oasis in the distance. “I haven't completely decided.”

Iron Bull did seem to take heart from Dorian's change of attitude, his chest expanding visibly after hours of slow deflation. He really was a striking sight with his horns framed against the sky, very rugged.....

“You should take your pants off, The Iron Bull.” Cole scratched absently at one wrist, oblivious to the stunned look Bull gave him. “Dorian would like you to take his off too.”

“Oh, would he?” Bull chuckled in Dorian's ear, obviously relieved that the request had come from the mage rather than some strange whimsy of Cole's.

“Thank you, Cole.” Dorian said faintly, well aware of the unbecoming flush rising up his face. “That was quite possibly the most horrific thing you could have said.”

“A lot of people want The Iron Bull to take their clothes off.” Cole looked curiously at the Qunari. “Why?”

“Ask me that again when I've had a drink or twenty,” Bull muttered. “Or better yet, don't.”

In a perfect world, the trio would have pretended that particular conversation had never taken place and continued on to the oasis in blissfully silent camaraderie. Thedas was, however, not known for its perfection or its fairness; as showcased when The Iron Bull took a magnificent stride from the top of the dune and stepped in a quillback nest.

Technically it was more of a den, or lair. A nest suggested there should be eggs, which Dorian noticed, appeared to be absent.

Baby quillbacks boiled out of the sand like bees from a kicked hive, jettisoning quills as they went. Iron Bull made a noise that he would later insist to Krem was a terrifying Qunari war cry; a sound meant to strike fear into a foe and send them scattering in panic. Dorian would have been more convinced if the Qunari had sounded less like a scalded cat, and hadn't been reeling backwards clutching one foot at the time.

Recovering his balance, if not all of his dignity, Iron Bull swung his maul in a low semicircle. Flattened quillbacks jettisoned in all directions, one clipped Cole on the side of the head and he immediately disappeared with a yelp of surprise.

Dorian took the opportunity of a relatively clear battlefield to set as many of the madly skittering creatures alight as he could. One, its back cheerfully ablaze, sank needle teeth into Dorian's ankle before expiring with a sizzle.

A lumbering adult, probably attracted by the sight of its immolated offspring, keeled over with a groan as Bull's maul lodged in its thick skull.

The silence was almost anticlimactic. Iron Bull stared proudly at the little smashed corpses, a pose somewhat ruined by the quills protruding from his legs. His ridiculous floppy trousers were in tatters around his calves, a few dangling threads still smoldered merrily.

Cole reappeared with a sharp crack of displaced air, and immediately hunched down on the sand, fixing Iron Bull with a wide-eyed stare of betrayal.

“Ahhh, you alright, kid?” Bull bent to tug another handful of quills from his shins.

“No.” Cole's voice was flatly accusatory. “You hit me with a flat quillback. It didn't mind because it was dead, but my face minded.”

The whole scene was so utterly ridiculous that Dorian couldn't help but laugh. Sitting down on the sand, shoulders shaking as he watched Bull try to corner Cole long enough to get some of the quills out of his face; short of actively retreating to the fade, Cole was employing every trick in the book to stay away from the advancing Qunari.

Clapping a hand over his mouth, Dorian dissolved into helpless hilarity. Bull was looking at him like he thought maybe the mage had gone completely mad, and Cole's attempt at sad puppy-eyes was ruined utterly by the quills hanging from his cheek like ridiculous Avar ornaments.

“The next time either of you decide you should explore something, please don't ask me to go with you.” Dorian shook his head, “I am more than happy to leave the sweating and bleeding to people who, for some deranged reason, seem to enjoy it.”

Iron Bull managed to look somewhat contrite and guilty, although Dorian admitted that might be because he'd finally managed to snag Cole long enough to remove the quillback spines, and Cole was quite busily telling him the intricacies of just how much the process hurt. 

Tugging off his (now utterly destroyed) custom stitched halla leather boot, Dorian prodded experimentally at the toothmarks that ringed his ankle. They weren't especially deep, but the little punctures stung and oozed sluggishly. 

“Let me see.” A huge hand caught Dorian's foot and effectively dumped him in an undignified sprawl in the sand.

“Do you mind?!” Dorian tried to tug his foot out of Iron Bull's grip as the Qunari peered at his savaged ankle. “Let me up you great lout!”

“Oh quit squirming.” Bull's coarse face creased into a leer. “Or keep it up, you know I like a bit of wriggling.”

“Really?!” Dorian managed to inject that one word with every ounce of disgust he felt at the way the day had turned out. He was utterly not in the mood to be pawed at by Iron Bull in the middle of a bunch of carrion, (probably while Cole watched) and the bite was actually starting to really hurt.

“Oh, come on.” Bull sat down with a thump, pulling Dorian's leg into his lap and dabbing a salve on the toothmarks. “You know how I get after battle.”

“This,” Dorian gestured expansively at the scattered little corpses. “This was not a 'battle', Bull....this was a....a slaughter. A slaughter of small animals.”

“Hey, I wasn't the one setting them on fire.” Bull's hand slid a little higher, all on the pretense of checking for other bites of course.

“Yes, well, heat of the moment.” Dorian smirked at his own unintentional witticism, and peered around as Bull's hand moved up to the sensitive skin on the back of his knee. “Where has Cole gone off too?”

“Oh, I sent the kid to go look at those ruins we saw down the dune. He won't be back for a while.” Iron Bull winked at Dorian, (which really looked a bit silly, given that he did that every time he blinked) “I thought you might want some attention.”

'This is what my life has become?' Dorian though, looking up at Bull's eager face with a sigh. I have gone from being pampered and spoiled, to rutting in sand and carrion with a rude Qunari.

“Very well,” Dorian couldn't deny that the idea was completely without merit, especially with the way that Bull was subtly sliding his hand higher up the mage's leg. “I suppose you should be certain I wasn't bitten anywhere else. One cannot be too careful.”

The whole 'rutting in sand with a Qunari' concept was starting to be especially appealing around the time Dorian lost his trousers, and Iron Bull started mouthing at him through the (very thin) material of his underthings. On some level Dorian knew he probably looked ridiculous with his robes hiked up around his waist, but he also knew that he honestly didn't care. Iron Bull had a ridiculously talented mouth.

It was of course natural, given how the day had gone so far, for Cole to appear right around the time Bull was starting to work his hand under the back of Dorian's smalls.

There was a moment of almost comic stillness. Bull was frozen with a bit of Dorian's underthings in his teeth, the hand under his backside had tightened into a rictus grip just this side of painful. Dorian stared up at Cole in utter mortification, caught between wanting to die of humiliation and wanting to banish Cole back to the fade and never speak of this day again.

“I don't want to go back to the fade.” Cole said in a small voice, blinking down at Dorian with confusion. “But I don't want you to die either, Dorian.”

Iron Bull withdrew and muttered something in qunlat that sounded highly derogatory, and was followed by what sounded to Dorian like: 'Spirit of Compassion, my ass.'

Dorian dragged his robes back down, choosing to ignore the fact that his trousers were too far away to retrieve with any dignity, and folded his hands over his lap. 

“I'm sorry...” Cole did manage to look contrite in that perpetual 'kicked-puppy' way he had. “Varric said I should knock so people don't get embarrassed, but there is no door here.”

“Why are you here, kid?”

“To help the....oh, you mean now.” Cole had gone a bit redder than Dorian could attribute to the sunburn. “You said to come tell you if I found anything dangerous, The Iron Bull.”

From the set of Bull's shoulders, Dorian suspected that anything less than an army of high dragons was going to result in Cole joining the legion of little quillbacks baking in the sun.

“Venatori.” Cole concluded, answering Iron Bull's unspoken question. “They are angry, there are people there in a cage. I don't want them to hurt, The Iron Bull.”

Dorian reached for his discarded trousers with a huff of resignation. Of course there were Venatori, given the day it was probably lucky there wasn't some manner of desert-spanning Venatori parade. Honestly at this point Dorian wouldn't have been shocked is Corypheus himself had descended to start another blight.

“Alright, kid.” Iron Bull swung his maul up onto his shoulder, moving in a way that suggested walking was still slightly uncomfortable. “Let's go kill some 'vints.”


End file.
